How Did Timothee Chalamet Change Oscar Isaac’s Mind About His Bob Dylan Role In A Complete Unknown? (Photo Credit – Facebook)
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Oscar Isaac admitted that he initially questioned the casting of Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. The biopic is directed by James Mangold and based on a 2015 book by Elijah Wald. However, Isaac acknowledges he may have been mistaken in his initial judgment.
The 45-year-old recalled that Chalamet excitedly shared the news with him during the filming of Dune: Part One. The latter told Isaac and his co-stars Josh Brolin and Steven McKinley Henderson about being cast as the iconic singer in the upcoming biopic.
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Oscar Isaac On Why He Thought Timothée Chalamet Portraying Bob Dylan Was A Bad Idea
“He starts telling us about his next project he was working on. A movie with the wonderful director James Mangold about a young Bob Dylan coming to New York in 1961,” recalled Isaac during Gotham Awards 2024. “And my first thought, ‘It sounds like a really bad idea.’ I mean, it’s Dylan. It’s the holy of holies for me. It just didn’t sound right,” he added.
Oscar Isaac Reveals What Changed His Mind About Timothee Chalamet’s Bob Dylan
Isaac, who once portrayed a folk musician in 1961 New York in the 2013 movie Inside Llewyn Davis continued, “Then Timmy takes out his guitar — not a good sign — and starts playing ‘Girl from the North Country.’” He added, “Now, this is a song I know deeply, to my core, and Josh, Steven and I, we’re not your average Timmy Chalamet groupies. We’re grizzled movie vets. We’ve seen some s—.”
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Isaac noted that Chalamet had just begun learning guitar and singing at the time. However, he was still blown away by how the actor approached Dylan’s music. Oscar Isaac felt that Timothee Chalamet didn’t treat it as something new to learn but as if he were discovering something he had always known.
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“I look over at a wide-smiling Steven, and he just says, ‘Yeah, baby,’ and the three of us just sat there watching this young man connect with something mysterious,” he added, per People Magazine. “And that is the nature of folk music. To quote the great Llewyn Davis, ‘If it never gets old and it was never new, it’s a folk song.’ “
Isaac presented the 28-year-old Hollywood star and Mangold with the Visionary Tribute Award at the 2024 Gotham Awards in New York City on Monday, December 2.
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Oscar Isaac Believes Timothee Chalamet & James Mangold Successfully Captured Bob Dylan’s Essence
“James and Timothée have approached this work with a mix of humility and irreverence, just like Dylan approached the Great American Songbook, probing familiar forms to rediscover the truth of the present moment,” Isaac said during his Gotham Awards speech as he brought the filmmaker-actor duo to the stage.
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Chalamet shared that he had spent five years preparing to portray Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. The biopic reportedly focuses on the legendary singer’s early rise to fame and decision to play electric guitars in the mid-’60s.
